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Recycling the condensate water of the air conditioner could be explored as an alternative water source to contribute to building the green campus. This paper explored the condensate water production through actual measurement based on a split air handling unit (SAHU) in a university building. Then, the statistical analysis was used to analyze the recycling feasibility and the impact factors of the condensate water production in 31 Chinese provincial capital cities to obtain the recycling potential map of the condensate water generated from a SAHU. Results showed that: (1) In the measurement, the amount of condensate water produced by a single split air conditioner was 1.6 kg from 12:40 to 13:40. Therefore, the daily output of condensate water of the air conditioner with the university operation schedule could reach 52.99 kg during the main air-conditioning season. (2) Among the 31 provincial capital cities in China, the largest condensate water outputs could be found in the Hot Summer and Warm Winter zone and the Hot Summer and Cold Winter zone, with an average monthly output of 1600 kg and 1100 kg, respectively. (3) Regression analysis showed that the dry-bulb temperature and dew point temperature of outdoor air had the highest positive and significant influence on condensate water production. The objective of this study is to provide theoretical guidance for the design and energy conservation evaluation of the feasibility of SAHU condensate water recycling in universities.

The purpose of this study was to design novel drug nanocrystals (NCs) stabilized by glycyrrhizic acid (GL) for achieving liver targeted drug delivery due to the presence of GL receptor in the hepatocytes. Quercetin (QT) exhibits good pharmacological activities for the treatment of liver diseases, including liver steatosis, fatty hepatitis, liver fibrosis, and liver cancer. It was selected as a model drug owing to its poor water solubility. QT NCs stabilized by GL (QT-NCs/GL) were fabricated by wet media milling technique and systemically evaluated. QT-NCs stabilized by poloxamer 188 (QT-NCs/P188) were prepared as a reference for comparison of in vitro and in vivo performance with QT-NCs/GL. QT-NCs/GL and QT-NCs/P188 with similar particle size around 130 nm were successfully fabricated by wet media milling technique. Both of QT-NCs/GL and QT-NCs/P188 showed irregular particles and short rods under SEM. XRPD revealed that QT-NCs/GL and QT-NCs/P188 remained in crystalline state with reduced crystallinity. QT-NCs/GL and QT-NCs/P188 exhibited significant solubility increase and drug release improvement of QT as compared to raw QT. No significant difference for the plasma concentration–time curves and pharmacokinetic parameters of QT were found following intravenous administration of QT-NCs/GL and QT-NCs/P188. However, a significantly higher liver distribution of QT following intravenous administration of QT-NCs/GL was observed in comparison to QT-NCs/P188, indicating QT-NCs stabilized by GL could achieve liver targeted delivery of QT. It could be concluded that GL used as stabilizer of QT NCs have a great potential for liver targeted drug delivery.

Abstract Cancer researchers often seek user-friendly interactive tools for validation, exploration, analysis, and visualization of molecular profiles in cancer patient samples. To aid researchers working on the both low- and high-grade gliomas, we developed Glioma-BioDP, a web tool for exploration and visualization of RNA and protein expression profiles of interest in these tumor types. Glioma-BioDP is user friendly application that include expression data from both the low- and high-grade glioma patient samples from The Cancer Genome Atlas and enabled querying by mRNA, microRNA, and protein level expression data from Illumina HiSeq and RPPA platforms respectively. Glioma-BioDP provides advance query interface and enables users to explore the association of genes, proteins, and miRNA expression with molecular and/or histological subtypes of gliomas, surgical resection status and survival. The prognostic significance and visualization of the selected expression profiles can be explored using interactive utilities provided. This tool may also enable validation and generation of new hypotheses of novel therapies impacting gliomas that aid in personalization of treatment for optimum outcomes.

Enhancing land productivity is a crucial strategy for addressing key sustainable development issues, such as poverty reduction and ensuring food security. Farmers’ Internet use behavior offers the potential to improve land productivity. However, relatively little is known about the association between Internet use and land productivity. To fill this void, this study examines the impact of Internet use on land productivity and its mechanisms. The results indicate that farmers’ use of the Internet has a positive impact on improving agricultural land productivity. Internet use increases land productivity by 12.3%, and the conclusion still holds after a series of robustness tests and endogeneity tests. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that Internet use significantly enhances land productivity in the central and northern parts of Jiangsu Province, while it does not have the same effect in the province’s southern regions. Without the addition of county fixed effects, the central sample regression results show that the coefficient for Internet use is 0.165 and significant at the 10% confidence level. When county fixed effects are added, the coefficient decreases to 0.117 and is not significant. The coefficient on Internet use for the northern sample is 0.128 and is significant at the 5% confidence level. Mechanistic analyses demonstrate that Internet use also enhances land productivity primarily by expanding the cultivated land area, facilitating mechanized production, and strengthening farmers’ social networks. The results of the study indicate that the positive effects of Internet use in improving land productivity should be fully released by strengthening the communication infrastructure, further enhancing farmers’ Internet use capacity, improving the land transfer system, upgrading the socialized service level of agricultural machinery, and strengthening agricultural financial support.

Abstract. Multiple sclerosis (MS) and experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), a pathologically similar disease used to model MS in rodents, are typical CD4+ T cell-dominated autoimmune diseases. CD4+ interleukin (IL)17+ T cells (Th17 cells) have been well studied and have shown that they play a critical role in the pathogenesis of MS/EAE. However, studies have suggested that CD8+IL17+ T cells (Tc17 cells) have a similar phenotype and cytokine and transcription factor profiles to those of Th17 cells and have been found to be crucial in the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases, including MS/EAE, psoriasis, type I diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and systemic lupus erythematosus. However, the evidence for this is indirect and insufficient. Therefore, we searched for related publications and attempted to summarize the current knowledge on the role of Tc17 cells in the pathogenesis of MS/EAE, as well as in the pathogenesis of other autoimmune diseases, and to find out whether Tc17 cells or Th17 cells play a more critical role in autoimmune disease, especially in MS and EAE pathogenesis, or whether the interaction between these two cell types plays a critical role in the development of the disease.

The growth of the digital economy has created new forms of inequality of opportunity. This paper studies whether the development of the digital economy expands the income gap between urban and rural areas from theoretical and empirical. The research based on the panel data of 202 cities from 2011 to 2019 in China shows that: (1) Although the digital economy can promote the improvement of both urban and rural absolute income levels, it has a greater positive impact on urban residents' income levels than on rural residents', resulting in a widening of the urban-rural income gap. (2) The analysis of the action mechanism reveals that employment in the information service industry and the depth of digital finance use are two crucial mechanisms for the digital economy to widen the income gap between urban and rural areas. (3) The spatial Durbin model(SDM) and the spatial error model(SEM) based on three spatial weight matrices show that the impact of the digital economy on the urban-rural income gap is also characterized by spatial spillover, and the development of the digital economy will also have a negative impact on the urban-rural income gap in neighboring regions as well. (4) The main conclusions still hold after the robustness of quasi-natural experiments based on the strategy of "Broadband China" and the selection of historical data as instrumental variables. This research is helpful to understand the effects, mechanisms and spatial characteristics of digital economy on urban-rural income gap.

This paper is applied the Tobit panel model to analyze the driving factors of green credit efficiency by using Chinese commercial banks’ data from 2009 to 2019. Based on the undesirable-SBM-DEA model, this paper is attempted to construct the green credit evaluation index by incorporating carbon emissions, and evaluating the green credit efficiency of Chinese commercial banks. The result shows that the green credit efficiency of Chinese commercial banks is low currently. Moreover, there is a mutually significant relationship between the efficiency and profitability of commercial banks’ green credit funds. Our findings suggest that the commercial banks should pursue the scale of green credit capital and improve the efficiency of green credits to help China achieve carbon neutrality goals.

Background: Huangqi Guizhi Wuwu decoction (HQGZWW) exhibits good effects when administered to treat multiple sclerosis (MS) and its animal model, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). Understanding the precise mechanism of this decoction is thus important. Based on the findings of our previous study, the aim of the present study was to understand the role of antigen-specific CD8+ T-cells on the pathogenesis of MS/EAE when HQGZWW is administered as treatment. Methods: Myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG) 35-55-induced mice were administered distilled water, prednisone, and high dose or low dose HQGZWW. After purified CD4+ and CD8+ T-cells were stimulated with the MOG35-55 peptide, proliferation and cytokine secretion assays were performed. To establish the adoptive transfer EAE model, naïve mice were injected with MOG35-55 -CD8+ or CD4+ T-cells. Results: Significant improvements in EAE score and pathology were observed in the high dose HQGZWW and prednisone groups. Compared to the low dose HQGZWW and distilled water groups, lower antigen-specific responses, lower levels of interferon-gamma, and higher levels of interleukin (IL)-4 and IL-10 from CD8+ and CD4+ T cells were observed in the high dose HQGZWW and prednisone groups. Finally, the EAE score was observed to be similar between the high dose HQGZWW group and prednisone group; however, this finding was not observed in the low dose HQGZWW group. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that high dose HQGZWW has similar effects on cell proliferation, cytokine secretion, and EAE score to prednisone, while low dose HQGZWW does not have such effect. The protective role of HQGZWW against EAE might thus depend on the Th2 cytokine secretion profile induced by either MOG35-55 specific CD8+ or CD4+ T-cells.

Using construction and demolition waste composites (CDWC) and fly ash (FA) to replace cement to produce concrete can reduce CO2 emissions. However, the CDWC-based geopolymer materials have two imperfections: the compressive strength is prone to decrease with the increase of curing age (strength shrinkage) under heat curing conditions, and the strength develops slowly under ambient curing conditions. To solve the problems of these materials, on the one hand, we designed an experiment of preparing CDWC-based geopolymer concrete (CDWGC) with pretreated CDWC at different high temperatures. We analyzed the influence of different pretreatment temperatures on the mechanical properties of CDWGC through compressive strength, SEM-EDS and XRD. On the other hand, we added CaO to improve the mechanical properties of CDWC-based geopolymer paste (CDWGP) under ambient curing conditions. Further, the CO2 emissions of pretreating CDWC and adding CaO were calculated by life cycle assessment (LCA). The results show that: (1) Pretreatment of CDWC can effectively solve the problem of CDWGC strength shrinkage. (2) The compressive strength of CDWGP cured at ambient can be significantly improved by adding CaO, and the compressive strength can be increased by 180.9% when the optimum content is 3%. (3) Adding CaO had less impact on CO2 emissions, a low-carbon way to improve its strength effectively.

This paper creatively studies the impact of the environmental governance on corporate performance in the context of China. We take the first round of central environmental inspections as the quasi-natural experiment shocks, and then test its effects on Chinese listed companies’ performance using the propensity score matching method and the difference-in-differences with multiple periods method. Furthermore, we discuss the transmission mechanism between central environmental inspections and corporate performance. The results indicate that central environmental inspections have significantly improved the corporate performance of listed companies in polluting industries in the inspected provinces. The central environmental inspections reduce agency costs and enhance corporate performance by improving the internal agency problems of listed companies. In addition, state-owned and large-scale companies are more sensitive to the central environmental inspections, and the effect of corporate performance improvement is more obvious. However, in regions with different levels of environmental regulations, there is no significant difference in the effects of central environmental inspections on the improvement of corporate performance.

The rural land right has paved the way for the deepening of China’s agricultural land system, which is critical to the successful implementation of the rural revitalization plan in the new era. Based on the micro-survey data of farmers in Yunnan Province, we use an OLS model to empirically test the impact of rural land rights on farmers’ income in underdeveloped areas, and we use a stepwise regression method to test the mechanism role of land transfer willingness and behavior in the rural land right on farmers’ income. Benchmark regression results show that the implementation of rural land rights policy significantly increased the total income of farmers, which mainly comes from farm income. Although the rural land right policy has no significant impact on farmers’ non-farm income, the sign of right coefficient is positive. Mechanism analysis shows that the rural land right can increase the income of farmers by encouraging them to transfer to land. It shows that the property right of land is clear, which makes it easier for land to transfer and trade, and farmers can achieve a certain degree of scale operation, thereby increasing income. Finally, it is suggested that future fiscal funding in impoverished regions be directed toward land transfer links and that accompanying rules and regulations adequately protect farmers’ land contract management rights.

Nocardia genus is an aerobic, gram-positive, and opportunistic pathogen, which mainly affects cell-mediated immunosuppressed patients. Early diagnosis and treatment greatly improve prognosis. However, the limitation of golden standard-bacterial culture exists. Here, we report a 61-year-old male with pneumonia, sepsis and intermuscular abscesses induced by Nocardia farcinica. Venous blood culture reported negative results. Former improper diagnosis and treatment did not improve his condition. With the assistant of metagenomic next-generation sequencing, the pathogen was identified as Nocardia farcinica. He was then applied with accurate treatment and had a remarkable clinical and radiological improvement.

Objective To evaluate the damage effect of glioma on corticospinal tract (CST) and motor function of lower extremities by using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and diffusion tensor tractography (DTT). Methods A total of 45 patients with histopathologically confirmed gliomas (13 cases of low-grade gliomas and 32 cases of high-grade gliomas) were included in this pilot study. Motor cortex was not involved in all cases. Manual Muscle Testing (MMT) was used to measure contralateral muscle strength of knee joint. DTI images were used to measure the affected and contralateral posterior limb of internal capsule fractional anisotropy (FA) and relative FA (rFA, rFA = affected FA / contralateral FA). DTT images were used to measure affected and contralateral CST fiber density index (FDi) and relative FDi (rFDi, rFDi = affected FDi / contralateral FDi). Results In 45 patients, there were 6 cases (13.33% ) of MTT grade 2, 12 cases (26.67%) of grade 3, 21 cases (46.67%) of grade 4 and 6 cases (13.33%) of grade 5. All patients had different degrees of CST injury, including 21 cases (46.67%) of grade 1, 6 cases (13.33%) of grade 2 and 18 cases (40%) of grade 3. There were significant differences in the degree of CST injury (H = 38.560, P = 0.000), rFA (F = 37.453, P = 0.000) and rFDi (F = 6.734, P = 0.001) in different muscle strength groups. Among them, MTT grade 2 group had significantly higher degree of CST injury (Z = -4.088, P = 0.000; Z = -3.317, P = 0.001) and lower rFDi values (t = -3.850, P = 0.000; t = -3.481, P = 0.001) than MTT grade 4 and grade 5 groups, while had lower rFA values than MTT grade 3, grade 4 and grade 5 groups (t = -8.218, P = 0.000; t = -8.898, P = 0.000; t = -12.028, P = 0.000). Spearman rank correlation analysis showed that muscle strength was negatively correlated with CST injury (rs = -0.840, P = 0.000) and positively correlated with rFA values of posterior limb of internal capsule (rs = 0.615, P = 0.000) and rFDi (rs = 0.567, P = 0.000). Conclusions The degree of CST injury in patients with glioma in CST area is related to the degree of motor dysfunction. DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1672-6731.2018.10.011

Abstract Currently, there are only very few dopant‐free polymer hole‐transporting materials (HTMs) that can enable perovskite solar cells (PVSCs) to demonstrate a high power conversion efficiency (PCE) of greater than 20%. To address this need, a simple and efficient way is developed to synthesize novel crossconjugated polymers as high performance dopant‐free HTMs to endow PVSCs with a high PCE of 21.3%, which is among the highest values reported for single‐junction inverted PVSCs. More importantly, rational understanding of the reasons why two isomeric polymer HTMs (PPE1 and PPE2) with almost identical photophysical properties, hole‐transporting ability, and surface wettability deliver so distinctly different device performance under similar device fabrication conditions is manifested. PPE2 is found to improve the quality of perovskite films cast on top with larger grain sizes and more oriented crystallization. These results help unveil the new HTM design rules to influence the perovskite growth/crystallization for improving the performance of inverted PVSCs.

Echovirus is an important cause of viral pneumonia and encephalitis in infants, neonates, and young children worldwide. However, the exact mechanism of its pathogenesis is still not well understood. Here, we established an echovirus type 9 infection mice model, and performed two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2DE) and tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS)-based comparative proteomics analysis to investigate the differentially expressed host proteins in mice brain. A total of 21 differentially expressed proteins were identified by MS/MS. The annotation of the differentially expressed proteins by function using the UniProt and GO databases identified one viral protein (5%), seven cytoskeletal proteins (33%), six macromolecular biosynthesis and metabolism proteins (28%), two stress response and chaperone binding proteins (9%), and five other cellular proteins (25%). The subcellular locations of these proteins were mainly found in the cytoskeleton, cytoplasm, nucleus, mitochondria, and Golgi apparatus. The protein expression profiles and the results of quantitative RT-PCR in the detection of gene transcripts were found to complement each other. The differential protein interaction network was predicted using the STRING database. Of the identified proteins, heat shock protein 70 (Hsp70), showing consistent results in the proteomics and transcriptomic analyses, was analyzed through Western blotting to verify the reliability of differential protein expression data in this study. Further, evaluation of the function of Hsp70 using siRNA and quercetin, an inhibitor of Hsp70, showed that Hsp70 was necessary for the infection of echovirus type 9. This study revealed that echovirus infection could cause the differential expression of a series of host proteins, which is helpful to reveal the pathogenesis of viral infection and identify therapeutic drug targets. Additionally, our results suggest that Hsp70 could be a useful therapeutic host protein target for echovirus infection.

Synthetic lethality exploits the phenomenon that a mutation in a cancer gene is often associated with new vulnerability which can be uniquely targeted therapeutically, leading to a significant increase in favorable outcome. DNA damage and survival pathways are among the most commonly mutated networks in human cancers. Recent data suggest that synthetic lethal interactions between a tumor defect and a DNA repair pathway can be used to preferentially kill tumor cells. We recently published a method, DiscoverSL, using multi-omic cancer data, that can predict synthetic lethal interactions of potential clinical relevance. Here, we apply the generality of our models in a comprehensive web tool called Synthetic Lethality Bio Discovery Portal (SL-BioDP) and extend the cancer types to 18 cancer genome atlas cohorts. SL-BioDP enables a data-driven computational approach to predict synthetic lethal interactions from hallmark cancer pathways by mining cancer’s genomic and chemical interactions. Our tool provides queries and visualizations for exploring potentially targetable synthetic lethal interactions, shows Kaplan−Meier plots of clinical relevance, and provides in silico validation using short hairpin RNA (shRNA) and drug efficacy data. Our method would thus shed light on mechanisms of synthetic lethal interactions and lead to the discovery of novel anticancer drugs.

Site-specific fluorescent labeling of proteins inside live mammalian cells has been achieved by employing Streptolysin O, a bacterial toxin which forms temporary pores in the membrane and allows delivery of virtually any fluorescent probes, ranging from labeled IgG’s to small ligands, with high efficiency (>85% of cells). The whole process, including recovery, takes 30 min, and the cell is ready to be imaged immediately. A variety of cell viability tests were performed after treatment with SLO to ensure that the cells have intact membranes, are able to divide, respond normally to signaling molecules, and maintains healthy organelle morphology. When combined with Oxyrase, a cell-friendly photostabilizer, a ~20x improvement in fluorescence photostability is achieved. By adding in glutathione, fluorophores are made to blink, enabling super-resolution fluorescence with 20–30 nm resolution over a long time (~30 min) under continuous illumination. Example applications in conventional and super-resolution imaging of native and transfected cells include p65 signal transduction activation, single molecule tracking of kinesin, and specific labeling of a series of nuclear and cytoplasmic protein complexes.

BACKGROUND:The pretreatment neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) is an independent predictor of prognosis in various malignancies, but its predictive capacity in basaloid squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus (BSCCE) remains unclear. We aim to determine the value of the inflammation-related factors, including the NLR, neutrophil-to-monocyte ratio (NMR), and albumin levels, in predicting BSCCE prognosis. METHODS:We retrospectively analyzed the records of 121 patients with pathologically diagnosed BSCCE that underwent a curative esophagectomy from January 2007 to December 2014. Univariate and multivariate analyses were used to identify prognostic factors for overall survival (OS) and recurrence-free survival (RFS). RESULTS:The preoperative NLR was correlated with the tumor length and NMR. In OS univariate analyses, a high NLR (>1.77), high NMR (>12.31), and low albumin (≤40.0 g/L) level were significantly associated with a poorer survival in BSCCE. The median OS was significantly greater in low NLR (≤1.77) than in the high NLR (>1.77) patients (51.0 vs. 31.0 months; P = 0.008). In multivariate analyses, only the NLR was an independent prognostic factor for OS (hazard ratio (HR), 2.030; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.262-3.264; P = 0.003). A high NLR was also an independent predictor of a poorer RFS in BSCCE (HR, 2.222; 95% CI, 1.407-3.508; P = 0.001); the median RFS for low (≤1.77) and high (> 1.77) NLR patients was 44.0 months and 14.0 months, respectively. NLR remained a strong prognostic indicator for OS in stage I/II patients and a preoperative NLR>1.77 was predictive of a poor RFS in both stage I/II and stage III patients. CONCLUSIONS:We show that the preoperative NLR, a convenient and cost-effective biomarker, may serve as a prognostic indicator for BSCCE patients following curative surgery.

In this study, the natural ventilation potential of residential buildings was numerically investigated based on a typical single-story house in the three most populous climate zones in Australia. Simulations using the commercial simulation software TRNSYS (Transient System Simulation Tool) were performed for all seasons in three representative cities, i.e., Darwin for the hot humid summer and warm winter zone, Sydney for the mild temperate zone, and Melbourne for the cool temperate zone. A natural ventilation control strategy was generated by the rule-based decision-tree method based on the local climates. Natural ventilation hour (NVH) and satisfied natural ventilation hour (SNVH) were employed to evaluate the potential of natural ventilation in each city considering local climate and local indoor thermal comfort requirements, respectively. The numerical results revealed that natural ventilation potential was related to the local climate. The greatest natural ventilation potential for the case study building was observed in Darwin with an annual 4141 SNVH out of 4728 NVH, while the least natural ventilation potential was found in the Melbourne case. Moreover, summer and transition seasons (spring and autumn) were found to be the optimal periods to sustain indoor thermal comfort by utilising natural ventilation in Sydney and Melbourne. By contrast, natural ventilation was found applicable over the whole year in Darwin. In addition, the indoor operative temperature results demonstrated that indoor thermal comfort can be maintained only by utilising natural ventilation for all cases during the whole year, except for the non-natural ventilation periods in summer in Darwin and winter in Melbourne. These findings could improve the understanding of natural ventilation potential in different climates, and are beneficial for the climate-conscious design of residential buildings in Australia.

In the title molecule, C24H17N3, the didhedral angles formed by the mean planes of the indole ring systems and the benzene ring are 86.44 (7) and 86.96 (7)°. The dihedral angle between the two indole ring systems is 72.08 (6)°. In the crystal, intermolecular bifurcated (N—H)2...N hydrogen bonds link molecules into sheets lying parallel to (010).